HW 14: Japanese Blogger Champions Internet Democracy

After reading Japanese Blogger Champions Internet Democracy in Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture, the interview with Joi Ito, I came to agree with some of Joi’s ideas. As a result I enjoyed this interview that Kline and Burstein had with Joi. Admittedly I thought the “copywriting” on blogs was a good idea, and even though it did not completely copy write the whole blogging page it put some ownership on the blog, indeed that is a neat idea. Also Ito explains how blogging is such a great way to meet new people over the internet for instance his encounter with Reverend Akma in Chicago. Although I do think it’s neat that you can communicate with different people all over the world, I still think it is a little sketchy. Ultimately Reverend Akma may have not been a reverend at all, that’s why blogging is scary, because people can hide their identity. Overall my favorite comment that Joi Ito made was the last sentence of the interview, “A lot of the media are thinking about blogs as a new form of publishing but it’s really a new form of conversation and a new form of community,” (Kline & Burstein 150). In other words I like how he connects blogging to conversations and not just publishing like we have talked about in the past, and other interviews we have read have stated. Ultimately Joi Ito puts blogging in a whole new perspective than we have discussed and therefore made this interview more interesting and worthwhile to read.